Could you, would you, should you integrate a chatbot to your digital customer experience? A question we are more and more often asked by our clients. Our short answer is: YES!
If you are not familiar with live chats or chatbots, we have listed below the main information you should know.
What Are Chatbots?
Chatbots are a form of ‘intelligent assistant’ technology, like Siri or Google assistant. Historically, they have been focused on one specific task within an organization.
Currently, there are two kinds of chatbots: an ordinary chatbot and an intelligent chatbot powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
With AI and the development of NLP (natural language processing), chatbots are becoming a phenomenal tool taking over customer interactions and mainstream digital advertising. Just ask Google and you will find over 100M results.
Benefits
Chatbots can answer effectively an unlimited amount of web users at the same time. They are automated, provide 24/7 support, and are a cheaper option than paying employees to monitor inquiries. Response time is instant- in any time zone. They can chat for hours without the need for human supervision.
However, chatbots are also computer programs. They are as good as the code that made them. Hence, ordinary chatbots may not always understand a misspelled word or answer a human inquiry that is incomplete. They won’t have the ability to think outside the box. The only information they have is the data you have been pre-programmed with.
This is where the magic of AI is bound to change computer interactions, as we know it. AI-driven chatbots have the ability to understand the meaning of a sentence, not just its keywords. They learn from misspelled words, synonyms, and ontologies. They are also multilingual. Very exciting!
AI Is Making Chatbots Better For Business
Users from across the planet are using messaging apps more than any other channel (over 2.5 billion people have at least one messaging app installed). This is the reason why brand communication is increasingly moving to chat. Companies are building their own chatbots leveraging off existing apps like Facebook Messenger, Viber, Slack, Kik, etc. These chatbots not only have the ability to personalize conversation, but also tap into the AI domain of improving knowledge. Powered by advanced AI technologies like NLP and NLU, chatbots can drive interactions, answer questions, deliver personalized notifications, collect feedback, schedule appointments, and even be ‘trained’ to learn from human behavior.
Bots are more lightweight than apps and easier to interact with (no downloads required). There’s a world of untapped possibilities that companies can exploit. For example, developers can now use the technologies that powers Amazon’s Alexa to build their bots. Especially for eCommerce, live chats with integrated AI bots seem a much better alternative to developing expensive app features.
Best AI Chatbots (plug and play)
There are many different kinds of chatbots that can be integrated with your eCommerce site, your social media pages, or other live chat software. Here are our top 5 picks, depending on your industry segment.
Morph.ai (easy personalized marketing/sales campaigns)
Bold360 (A.I. chatbot and live-agent software)
BotEngine (with the BotEngine you can integrate any chatbot you’d like)
Clare.A (business process automation; a great banking assistant)
MobileMonkey (a Facebook messenger marketing solution)
The success of a chatbot, like any digital product, is measured on its levels of usability, engagement, and the value it provides. Building your live chat to reflect emotional intelligence and your brand’s personality will make your eCommerce platform a space people enjoy using.
Chatbots are the next generation of intelligence. You can tap into the power of chatbots to drive sales and boost your business.
For advice on designing a fantastic corporate site with integrated live chat/chatbot say hello@edesigninteractive.com. Our team would be happy to land you a hand.